Madness Catching
by giantgnat
Summary: Rorschach, the judge, jury and executioner of sin. Now, he must face and end the new avatar of evil sent to him by providence; the Clown Prince of Crime, laying down some nefarious plot of his own. When two madmen face each other, who will win?
1. Chapter 1

His features formed themselves from the darkness like a specter, even as he walked out of the shadows. His trench coat was worn and ragged, his shoes too old to make any sound against the time-blackened cobbles. He raised his head, and under his hat, was an ever roiling mass of white and black.

Dark and Light. Good and Evil. Never merging, white and black in an eternal masque. The pattern was reminiscent of those ink blots his psychiatrists had been so fond of; he knew this, and styled himself after them. He called himself Rorschach, and he was the last wall before Armageddon.

He walked in his hunched tread, hands tucked in his coat, the rim of his hat low over his shifting mask-face. To his right, there was the filth in the shadows, the dull-eyed beggars and bestial rapists, shrinking away from him. To his left, beyond the shadows, was the filth of the lights, the rich murderers and painted whores, unaware of him as they laughed in the bright neon. Bathing their sins in pink and yellow and green to hide the bloody reds. But they couldn't hide their stench. The stench of a sinner. The stench of evil.

Inside him, a beast howled at its constraints, frothing at the chance to grab the nearest seductress and clench his fist around her tendons till she coughed blood. But he held it in check; there were worse things to address tonight. Insects can be ignored; demons cannot.

He emerged from the winding bowels of the shadow-streets, into a dark neighborhood. His teeth clenched as he heard from a house what seemed to be a man hitting some sort of child; the beast howled and raged within him to kick through the flimsy door and put an end to the aggressor. With a low growl, he stopped himself. No. There is a purpose tonight.

Ignoring the continued cries, he looked at the apparent backside of a warehouse not too far away. Here, the streets were abandoned, and yellow bulbs flickered to bath the cobbles in a sickly hue. Despite his mediocre height, he covered his steps widely and swiftly, not even pausing as he wrenched a rusted pipe from a wall in a hiss of steam. As he approached the front, he became aware of a form walking towards him. Jim Cartier, middle aged white male. Average face, memorable only by a broken nose and the cowardice that dripped from every pore.

Rorschach stood silent as the man came closer. In another, dream-like life he had seen this Cartier before; he had clubbed the soft man in the nose with the sign bearing "The End Is Nigh" to convince him of his present betrayal.

In a nasal voice, he told Rorschach of the risk he was taking by doing this; nonetheless, he was fast to comply as a hand gripped him roughly by his hair.

"Lord!" breathed the man in panic, "Please, please… man, I told your friend I'd help… Just lemme go…"

He sighed in relief as the grip slackened, withdrew a key from his person to, as silently as he could, open the heavy lock on the outside. He turned around with a relieved grin, half of which flew out of his mouth as a metal pipe connected with it. He was down before he could comprehend the pain, much less yell.

Stepping over his body, a trench-coat wearing apparition pushes open the door; they creak into the belly of the warehouse, into absolute darkness. Unfazed, Rorschach walked into the belly of the beast, pipe held tight in a clenched fist, so that the hand beneath the glove knotted with pain.

He heard an echoing laugh behind him, even as the doors creak close. His head snapped back, but saw nothing; the darkness is absolute. The laughter repeats itself, now accompanied by the spark of an ignited matchstick. Looking at the pinprick of flame, Rorschach's mask-face morphed into a spread blot of fear; haloing the matchstick was a deathly pale, blood encrusted face, with knotted green hair and a red grin.

"Peek-a-boo!" cackled the apparition, and as Rorschach leapt at it, the match went out.


	2. Chapter 2

The hollow darkness shook with the cackles of a madman.

The mask-face chaffed at the remnant that was the face of Walter Kovacs; Unseeing, furious, Rorschach swung the pipe at every giggle, only to slice through nothing but shadows. A blackness so absolute that even now his eyes fought to adapt to it.

"So, what's your story?" Came the voice, and he swung again; but now the thing was laughing behind him. "Who are you, Ink-Blot-Man?"

Even as the beast boiled within him, Rorschach stood still, letting the pipe's tip droop to touch the ground.

Again, the laughter. "Haha, touched a nerve, did I? Now let's cut it open." The words ended in a twisted snarl.

He ducked on a whim, hearing the swipe of a blade pass over his head, even as he lunged with the pipe. This time there was a solid connection; a crack of a rib and a bemused grunt resounded. Not letting up, Rorschach pushed his knee into what he assumed to be the groin; yet another grunt as the figure slumped before him.

"You don't get the last laugh," he said coldly, as he readied himself to swing the pipe again.

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in his thigh. He stumbled back, feeling the blood-slick handle of a knife buried there. There was a flash as a matchstick was kindled; as he slit his eyes to look at the unexpected flash, he realized the danger too late.

Another knife swung at him, glinting only briefly in the meagre light before embedding itself in his forearm. He growled, whipping the arm out, a pain spasm making him drop the pipe.

"Say cheese!"

The words were followed by a lanky form that suddenly latched onto him, wrenching free the knife from his thigh. He let his left hand jab the man's face, once, twice. His hat fell off, somewhere to his right. But now a hand was roughly gripping his mask-face, as if trying to-

"No." he gasped, as the mask, nothing but a mask, was wrenched off.

All of a sudden, he felt… naked. Once more the face of Walter Kovacs was bared to the elements, and his eyes burned with inexplicable shame.

"My face…" he said- no growled- "MY FACE!"

He kicked out with his good leg, catching the aggressor in the chest. The muscles of his left thigh spasmed and he fell, growling like a mad dog.

In front of him, he saw that the matchstick had ignited a small, growing flame in the sandy saw dust that covered the floor of the warehouse. It was then obscured by a shoe clacking in front of his- no, not his- face.

"What, you think this piece of Dalmatian fur is your face? Wow, you're crazier than me."

The apparition lowered itself into his field of view. It was heavily bruised, and its grin was redder than white.

"They call me the Joker. Want a gig?"

With a terrible calmness, Rorschach spat in that face. It felt good.

A horrible expression writhed across the Joker's face, before turning into a wild smile. "You know what you need? A reason to love your own face."

Rorschach ignored the words, tried to prop himself up. He stopped as a bloody knife appeared an inch to his neck.

"You are dead," he said simply. The clown roared with laughter.

"Well look at you! Already gaining a little self-esteem? Good! Now, I want you to see this…"

He stepped back, allowing Rorschach to rise slightly. The fire was now close, and he felt its heat; it was numbed however, by the chill as he saw the Joker.

The lanky clown man stood there, devilish in the flickering red light. His tattered purple coat hugged his form desperately, the hands emerging from the sleeves almost skeletal. Those hands, that was where Rorschach looked. Not the wild grin. Not the green hair. Not anything but the knife held oh-so-close to his mask-face, almost touching, by those skeletal white hands.

"No…"

The grin widened, but he didn't see it. He looked as the blade relaxed an inch, then slowly pricked the morphing fabric.

"NO!" He roared, as the beast boiled over.

Pouncing forward, carried by pain and fury to drive men mad twice over, his hand wrenched the knife from the surprised grasp of the Joker. His mangled forearm did not stop him from grabbing the mask as it fell, frantically swinging the knife to ward off the Joker.

As the madman leapt back with a bemused snarl, he pulled the mask-face over his head, feeling… whole, again. He threw the knife, surprising the Joker with his own maneuver, as it cut into his flamboyant collar to pin him with a rusty crate.

The clown laughed as he wildly kicked, trying to keep Rorschach from him. But Justice is to be served. Rorschach knows this, even as he looks through the single eye-hole ripped into his mask-face by the Joker's stab. Eyes watering from the sudden smoke and grabbing a flailing leg, he pulled, wrenching the Joker from his pinned position with a yelp. Pinning him, Rorschach grabbed the knife, holding it above his head.

"Smile!" he roared, swinging the knife in a horizontal slash, just enough to split apart the clownish abomination's cheeks open in a crimson grin.

With a strange laugh-sob, the Joker kicked him off with surprising strength- straight into the now fast rising fire.

The red tongues of fire snaked their hellish paths across his back as he rolled clear, trying to extinguish the flames. Eyes watering, he continued to roll, realizing that the flames were gone; and yet he could still feel them.

Getting to his knees, he whipped back his head, expecting to see the Joker leering down at him. Instead, he saw nothing but the ever rising inferno. The Joker was undoubtedly gone.

He got up, groaning as the weight shifted on his mauled thigh. He limped to the doors, almost stumbling over the unconscious man he had left in his wake. Without looking back, he slipped into the shadows, letting their coolness soothe his minor burns.

Coat all but ruined, mask-face mutilated, and multiple injuries. The Joker was not an easy foe to face; he should have expected this. He had underestimated the clown. A fault on his part, then.

He'd heard a joke once, of a clown who went to a doctor because he was sad. Today he had been the doctor; he'd made the clown smile.


End file.
